This article is within the scope of WikiProject Bible, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Bible on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Judaism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Judaism-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Kabbalah, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Kabbalah on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.

What is meant by 'speculation?' What weight does it carry within Judaism? Is it similar to the Catholic 'tradition?' That part of the article is unclear to me because it seems that the word speculation is used with greater weight than it is normally given.

Changed the word 'speculation' to 'exegeses'. Speculation seems to be too POV to be appropriate. --Shirahadasha 22:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems to be a lot of unsourced material in the article. Not able to tell if perhaps some editors are doing some speculation of theri own. --Shirahadasha 22:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Tarot cards -- the difficulty here is that nothing's been identified as a reference, there are only external links. Not all the external links meet the reliable source criteria necessary to serve as references. --Shirahadasha 03:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, especially for controversial subjects and subjects where different religions, denominations, or scholars have different interpretations and opinions, footnote-style have often been found necessary to identify who proposed or supports what view. --Shirahadasha 03:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Especially notable is the bit about Maimonides, that he said the Book of Ezekial should be destroyed, etc.... I'm fairly certain he said no such thing; in "The Guide" he refers to the Account of the Chariot as a mystery of the Torah that needs to be guarded and kept secret, by which he means the first part of Ezekial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.173.156.84 (talk • contribs) 22 December 2006

Moved the image to the Christianity section. In addition to the fact that these images are by Christian artists, Judaism has some difficulties making images of these things, although it certainly uses art for purposes. That is, the idea of using images as a medium for depiction of this represents more of a Christian idea. --Shirahadasha 03:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it is not Christian-exclusive, and it's nice to give some visual image at the beginning of the page. 03:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It has no Christian-specific iconography or symbolism, and does not express any Christian-specific interpretation, so it really has nothing to do with the Christian-specific section of this article. Furthermore the objections you raise are only the opinion of some among Jews, so I don't see how it's your place to impose one particular view on the article while claiming a putative right to speak on behalf of all Jews. The editors of the multi-volume impeccably-scholarly "Encyclopaedia Judaica" certainly didn't seem to share your opinion when they included many depictions of Biblical scenes by non-Jewish artists within their reference work. Furthermore, the paragraph at the top of the article is not in fact a "Jewish" section -- it's a section defining the basic phenomenon. There then follows two Jewish sections, one Christian section, one New Age section, and one Trivia section -- but the first paragraph does not belong to any of these. AnonMoos 03:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Move links to talk page. Several seem to be selling products or services, mostly of a New Age type, which it is claimed are based on or related to the Merkabah. These claims strike me as dubious. I would suggest limiting links to religious or academic organizations that provide information with some indicia of reliability. I would say the same thing of a site by e.g. an isolated rabbi without additional information to establish the individual's reliability. A couple of these sources may be reliable, I will move them back if they are. Please feel free to weigh in and discuss. --Shirahadasha 05:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Could it be possible that Ezekiel took one too many drops of acid instead? - 124.82.8.188 02:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

No: there is a parallelism in early twelfth-century France between the Narbonne school of Rabad (the author of the first Kabbalistic text, the Bahir) and the Paris school of Notre Dame, which subseqently split into the Realists and Nominalists on the extremes, with the Conceptualists in the middle. Both schools, one Christian and one Jewish, started from applying neo-platonist thinking to their own theologies and went on to develop, virtually simultaneously, similar transcendent experiences, Pentecostalism and the Merkabah.

It is to be noted that the Roman Catholic claims over dominion crystalised in 1435-6 in Brussels, and I would ask anyone with real knowledge about the Jewish side to correspond with me privately on the subject: I am particularly interested in an explanation why the Desecration pogroms were virtually identical and why the victims appear to have collaborated in their own immolation, in a very similar way to the Templars.Jel 08:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Strange is your article:
1)there is no Egyptian source explination - Mer: means light; ka: means vital energy; bah: soul(in old Egyptian)
2)everybody knows that the bible is a imitation of the egyptian religion - why there is no connection to the source?
It is very poor! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.227.164.124 (talk) 02:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately for your preferred style of "etymologizing", Semitic etymologies proceed by triconsonantal roots, and the root of merkaba is R-K-B. Also, merkaba was a perfectly ordinary word meaning "chariot" for many centuries before it acquired signifcant mystical connotations. And no, "everybody" doesn't know that ancient Israelite religion was an "imitation" of Egyptian religion. There were certain Egyptian influences in certain limited contexts (generally having far more to do with wisdom literature than with theology as such), but there's no specific evidence that I'm aware of that Ezekiel's vision manifests any meaningful Egyptian influences... AnonMoos (talk) 23:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The word merKaBa is Egyptien! You have sited the source at the end of the page! Just look at it!!!Somebody of your collaborators don't want that the peole know THE TRUTH! ? But, it is time to change the game!!! It is time to spread the real knowledge all around the world! Stop the manipulations (religious/political/economical/pedagogic...) Stopt it now!!! -- 10:51, 18 December 2008 84.226.50.153

Unfortunately, those who know the most about ancient Hebrew linguistics reject the etymology which you've proposed, as previously explained directly above. AnonMoos (talk) 16:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Four angels on each end whose wings touch each other with two other wings covering their bodies. That's exactly like the ark of the covenant's description.

Four wheels which all contain another wheel (like any chariot wheel, not like in the image in the article). "These wheels are not directly under the chariot, but are nearby and along its perimeter."

The likeness of a man driving it (the driver or the one being driven).

Something that always points eastward (compass? could be made to have its figure point East even if it worked like a regular compass pointing north).

Also, it mentions: "These angels (Seraphims) appear like flashes of fire continuously ascending and descending. These "Seraphim" angels powered the movement of the chariot."

Remember how some people attribute electrical powers to the ark due to certain passages? Well here we see this mentioned once more: flashes of fire continuously ascending and descending, which power the chariot! Reminds you of any electrical contraption from science classes?;)

The original ark was carried by men, using wooden poles passing through holes on the sides. The one described by Ezekiel sounds a lot like the ark of the covenant, but on wheels instead. 76.65.57.223 (talk) 05:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Verse 15 says "Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces." [Wheels, discs, they came from the sky with the creatures.]

Verse 16 says "The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel." [They all were alike (same model), wheel inside wheel, or circle inside circle.]

Verse 17 says "When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went." [Circular motion, movement display controlled by the creatures.]

Verse 18 says "As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four." [Anthenas as rims, lights as eyes.]

Verse 19 says "And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above." [Creatures may not being able to breathe oxigen and they had to wear some kind of helmet like our astronauts did when they went to the moon.]

These are my own conclusions, but maybe someone else may provide references of publications on the topic because my only source is The Bible itself. Stratogustav (talk) 04:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Gustavo Avilés

If they're your own conclusions, then some people are sure to point out that that's WP:OR. In any case, the question would really be not whether Ezekiel's words are compatible with an extra-terrestrial explanation, but whether there's anything in the words which fits better with an extraterrestrial explanation than with the "null hypothesis" of a vision of supernatural divine manifestations and angelic beings? Of course, the question is completely unanswerable, because we actually have no idea what advanced extraterrestrial technology would even visually look like... AnonMoos (talk) 19:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah they are my own thoughts, that's why I'm asking. The concern is that, if you take it literally, that's what it sounds like, extraterrestrial, so I was wondering if somebody else have actually make notice on a book or a magazine regarding the subject, otherwise I would not even intend to add the info. Stratogustav (talk) 06:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course this has been a favorite of the "ancient astronaut" types -- a simple Google search for ezekiel daniken will turn up plenty of discussion... AnonMoos (talk) 03:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

A lot of writers have called Ezekiel's wheels a classic UFO incident. Why isn't this in the article? Are fundamentalist christian editors keeping it out? --76.115.67.114 (talk) 21:21, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, those authors are predominantly UFO-advocates or Daniken types or Forteans, not really mainstream Biblical scholars. If you can find a reliable source about the UFO speculations, they could be mentioned as such, but the average author of a book about UFOs is really not a reliable source for the meaning of the Bible... AnonMoos (talk) 22:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

It's right to at least link to UFO interpretations, if not include a whole section. Not doing so only serves those who find the topic offensive to their private beliefs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.248.161.109 (talk) 01:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Only if these interpretations were obviously relevant and referenced (not with some Erich von Däniken book or conspiracy theory crap). --217/83 15:08, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I love the way von Daniken here is being cast as a delusional idiot writing 'crap', whereas the Bible is an entirely sensible work which must be treated with great respect. --188.28.85.74 (talk) 19:51, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Anyone source that simply considers the man, lion, ox, and eagle being symbols for north, south, east, west, and that the whole arrangement is just a plain symbol to express the omnipotence of JHWH? Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 20:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I watch alot of history channel stuff and according to a special i've seen Beasts of the Bible the eagle face was an intentional mistranslation of the word Nesher(sp), wich is not an eagle but the griffon vulture; largest bird of pray in middle east and thought to be the highest flying of all birds, thus king of the birds. Well known in eastern cultures but relatively unknown in Europe, so the translaters used the more familiar eagle in it's place.

Ps...theorised cherub/tetramorph symbology Ox=king of domestic beasts it can bear great burdens giving itself willingly to sacrifice, Lion=king of wild beasts it's mane is a royal crown, Nesher(sp)=king of flying beasts flies closest to heaven yet feeds on the dead; symbol of the capacity for sin and virtue, man=god's ordained ruler.

Bloodkith is spot on. Aquarius is the only one of the 12 zodiacal signs that could equate to a mortal man. And the Israelite (Hebrew) equivalent to the Babylonian Scorpio was, indeed, the Eagle/Vulture. It is right to see these correspondences in the context of the Babylonian Exile of the Jewish aristocracy, during which Ezekiel lived.--DStanB (talk * contribs) 13:50, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

On a much more minor point, the capitalization of "Creatures" seems odd. -- 23:54, 26 January 2012‎ User:Bdenckla

The Greek word ζῳον means "living creature, animal", derived from the same root as ζωη "life". The sentence is probably wrong in its current form, but could be made correct with a slight change... AnonMoos (talk) 05:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I wish to state two things: 1-Merkabah is an Arabic word which means a chariot or a carriage.

2- Israel is Jacob, son of Issac, so nothing using the world Israel before 1948 only means Jacob. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.253.13.237 (talk) 10:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Hebrew and Arabic are related Semitic languages, and have in common methods of deriving words from consonantal roots, but the Hebrew word "merkabah" does not come from Arabic. Have no idea what your second point means, or how it could be relevant to the article... AnonMoos (talk) 16:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)